In college, I watched how some interviewers sorted their submitted resumes
by GPA, then anything below 3.0 they threw in the thrash.

It''s really pathetic.

I want to send him money, but my parents won''t let me. They say I shouldn''t be wasting my money.

If it were up to me, I would donate.

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Original post by Afaik
In college, I watched how some interviewers sorted their submitted resumes
by GPA, then anything below 3.0 they threw in the thrash.

It''s really pathetic.

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I agree, but they don''t have a way that is better at the moment. Sure, they could conduct personal interviews, but interviewing tens of thousands of people each year is highly ineffiecient. The GPA and SAT scores are the closest they come to "Will this person succeed in college"

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Gamedev for learning.
libGDN for putting it all together.
An opensource, cross platform, cross API game development library.

Hi There!
I have a query here: I dont live in teh US or Canada...I come from Asia... and I am making very little money myself.I feel really bad that I am in no postion to help(not right now) even though I feel really guilty for using the resources and all the help without ever doing anything back....just a lame thank you and many God Bless You''s.I am wondering....how much mony would be good to get NeHe through. I could start collecting now...just give me some estimate.that would be useful.how soon does he need the money?

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Original post by titan2782
I agree, most companies do not want self taught people, they want a stupid peice of paper sayign that you know how to program. I can code better than 90% of those joe blows who come out of school with degree''s. I have 11 years of experience (i''m only 20yr old btw) and they have 0. I learn at my own pace which is way faster than any class can do. I knwo how hard it is. Luckily I found a local company who does not care about degree''s, only results. I make a very nice living. How many 20yr old people do you know making 37k / yr ? all from self taught skills. Books are the ultimate answer.

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You''ll find most graduates with computer degrees will have had a few years experience before they entered university, so I don''t know where you get your 90% from.

The ''stupid piece of paper'' is an indication, and to an extent proof, of your ability to pick up, learn and grasp more abstract concepts. Someone with a post graduate computing degree will make faster in-roads to overcoming a programming problem and be miles ahead of than someone who is self taught, primarily because the post-grad will have had to push or add to the boundaries of knowledge. People often consider themselves better than what they are because they have nothing against which they can measure themselves. This piece of paper is a start to weeding out the potentially less able candidates, though not always a guarantee. We''re currently recruiting, and it astounds me the number of candidates professing to have excellent skills in the languages we require, but who perform poorly in tests of the language rudimentaries. And these are contractors!

In learning by yourself is that you are restricted by what you can understand, how lateral your thinking is and by what you are interested in. A course should be able to pitch the material at a level and manner which will push your understanding, and the teacher/tutor should be able to adapt the way they convey the content to achieve this. This is something a book cannot do. The objective of a class or course is to give you a kickstart and a decent grounding or base from which you can then advance. Of course, this falters a bit if your instructor is crap...

However, after a few years, it tends to be experience and not qualifications that get you further. So, if you get your foot in the door with your self-taught skills, then you''re pretty much set.

Jeroen

Finally someone that shares my view! I thought everyone was on the self-taught side.

Nothing can beat a college education. It doesn''t matter how many years you''ve spent reading books. When it comes down to it, good, readable, forward-looking code can only come from someone with a degree. And only with that degree can you seriously call yourself a Software Engineer or programmer. Otherwise, you''re just a hack who has been coding for a long time. There''s a lot more to being a programmer than just writing code, I hope you guys realize that.

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K-1 Productions: Come visit us here.

I am teaching myself OpenGl though. And C++. But I won''t admit to being good at either.

Could one also imply that with a degree one can create better bugs?

Jeroen

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Original post by K-1
When it comes down to it, good, readable, forward-looking code can only come from someone with a degree. And only with that degree can you seriously call yourself a Software Engineer or programmer. Otherwise, you''re just a hack who has been coding for a long time.

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Mmmm... I can tell you that I saw a lot of code at the companies I worked for and I saw bad ugly code comming from guys with university diplomas. Education is good but it''s not the only way.
It is wrong to say that only people with degrees can write good code.

Sure I''ve seen plenty of bad code being written from programmers with degrees. But when writing software for a company you have a deadline, a very serious and crucial deadline when things have to be done. Given the amount of time one has with personal projects, I would not see the amount of sloppy code that I do at work. A majority of the sloppy code has also been written by people who have been out of school for a while and haven''t been presented with the more recent programming innovations (i.e. UML, XP, and some, even C++). Programming today is better than it was 5, even 10, years ago. All the more reason to take a class every couple years to keep up on new techniques. A book simple wouldn''t cut it because you won''t be pushed as hard to learn as much. Tell me this, can you ask a question to a book? Do you get an immediate response? I don''t think so.

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K-1 Productions: Come visit us here.

Some universities aren''t up to date themselves with the today''s reality in companies. That''s why experience count for a lot.

Of course a book can''t answer questions but with the web, you can get answers very fast, answers from real programmers that are working as programmers, not from teachers that don''t program for companies with deadlines as you say.

Anyways, having a degree is certainly worth it, but don''t judge people on that only. Because a sometimes it just doesn''t do any difference.

I don''t have a degree and I always managed to find good jobs. Up to now, my bosses always told me that I was one of the best they had, even if the others had degrees. So for me, it doesn''t do any difference.